Looking at buying new (camera) body

[FelipeG]

Also, avoid going below ISO200 (ISO160 is pretty good too, you just have to enable it). In fact, I recommend turning on the 1/3 stop ISO settings, so you can "unlock" ISO 125, 160, 250, 320, 500, etc.

[Jay Beckman]

Just curious but why no lower than ISO 200?

That forces you to have to use a smaller aperture than really necessary at "prop blur" shutter speeds...

No need for say, f/16 when you can use f/13 or f/13 when you can use f/11.  Smaller sensors are diffraction-limited at a larger aperture than APS-H or Full Frame so you really want as large an aperture as you can get.

I often use a .6 (two stop) ND in my 300 and 500 so that I can get a larger aperture than normal for 1/125 in the Arizona sun.

[FelipeG]

Because I've found the 7D to be quite noisy at 100-125 if the sky is visible. I don't think anyone has been able to explain why, but several 7D owners I spoke to have the same issue. I've been tempted to rent or borrow a 60D to compare it with the 7D and see if there's any noticeable difference.

Do you have a 7D Jay? Because if you do, it sounds like you may not be having those issues.

[Joe Copalman]

I've read similar about the 7D, and that exposing to the right and dialing back the exposure in ACR or Lightroom or whatever is the best fix for dealing with this.  The 50D is actually pretty noisy when it comes to clear blue skies at low ISOs (I have better results at 160 than 100, and have heard talk that 160 is actually Canon's true native ISO, but that's all been third-hand info), and I've found that shooting manual and overexposing by +1/3 to +1 EV has really helped reduce noise in my shots.

[Jay Beckman]

Because I've found the 7D to be quite noisy at 100-125 if the sky is visible. I don't think anyone has been able to explain why, but several 7D owners I spoke to have the same issue. I've been tempted to rent or borrow a 60D to compare it with the 7D and see if there's any noticeable difference.

Do you have a 7D Jay? Because if you do, it sounds like you may not be having those issues.

Are you shooting RAW or JPEG?

[FelipeG]

I shoot RAW.

How does that +1/3 to +1 trick work in Phoenix? I've always felt like that would start overexposing highlights and whites

[Jay Beckman]

ETTR (Expose To The Right) by 1/3 of a stop won't blow out any highlights that aren't "specular" and would normally be lacking in detail anyways (eg, sun off canopy or brilliant light on a chrome spinner.)

Bear in mind that your in-camera histogram is being generated by the embedded jpeg and not the raw file.  You're safe for at least another 1/3 to 1/2 stop of headroom in the raw than what you see in the histogram.  Mild "blinkies" can be recovered in post in most cases.

Anytime you lower your exposure, even by a little bit, you are driving the noise floor down.

From what I understand, the 7D, because of the pixel density, can end up being a little bit noisier and is somewhat less forgiving of missed exposures than its APS-H and FF counterparts.  Still, 18MP on APS-C is a lot of cropping latitude and tons of "reach" so that's the up-side over the other sensor classes.

[FelipeG]

Thanks for that info, I will try that next time I'm at the airport and see what happens.